Re: (FT) beta variable hull rows

What Oerjan wrote:
-------------------------------------
For a ship with this above engine combination, a hull with 4 boxes in
4
rows - ie., 1 box in each row - have a total cost of 4*4.3 = 17.2 pts.
*3*
boxes in a *3*-row hull - again 1 box in each row - have a total cost
of
3*5.3 = 15.9 pts on this ship.

If you make the 3-row hull cost 4 pts per box instead, each 3-row hull
box
would have a total cost of 2.3+4 = 6.3 pts; so the 3-box, 3-row hull
would
cost 3*6.3 = 18.9 pts.

This is *more* than the total cost of the *4*-box, 4-row hull, so what
you're actually saying with this proposal is that you believe that the
4th
box in its 4th row is worth *less than zero points*. In other words,
you're
saying that a ship with 4 rows would become *more powerful* if you
replaced
its 4th hull row with the same Mass of empty cargo holds without
changing
anything else on the ship.
-------------------------------------------------

---
My comment:

This sounds like the speech by the engineer that designs the new rifle
for
the infantry man.  My response is like the soldier in the field saying
a whole
bunch of things, and I'll print the nice ones.	:)

....
Excuse the pun, but we're not playing in a vacuum here.  We're not
playing
with 3 or 4 hull ships, we're playing with 30-60 hull ships.
....

---
He wrote some more:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Note that I'm not saying "more cost-effective" or "more powerful for
its
points value" or anything like that, but a straight "more powerful" -
which
means some combination of "more firepower", "better at applying the
firepower carried" and "harder to destroy". Since replacing the 4th
hull
row with empty cargo holds changes neither the ship's firepower nor
its
manoeuvrability (ie. ability to apply its firepower), the only thing
"more
powerful" could mean in this case is "harder to destroy".

In my experience ships with 3 rows of X hull boxes (for a total hull
integrity of 3*X) are *not* harder to destroy than ships with 4 rows
of X
hull boxes (for a total hull integrity of 4*X) but otherwise identical
equipment. Quite the contrary, in fact; in my experience 3*X-hulled
ships
are almost invariably *easier* to destroy than 4*X-hulled ones simply
because it takes X fewer damage points to destroy them.
----------------------------------------------------

---
Some more grumblings from me:

How can you say this?  The 3-row hull ship will have the same number
of hull boxes as the 4-row hull ship, they'll just be in a more
optimum
configuration for taking less threshold checks.  It will cost more,
but
the end result is a vastly superior design over the 4-row hull ship
for
its cost.  This is why I think the current cost increase for 3 rows is
not enough.

I'm going to give two examples.  Why these two?  I'm going to use
them in another message so they'll do for this as well.  Steve's ship
is near what he had, I didn't get the exact numbers; he had 2xclass-1
grazers, also (*grumble*), so I have the hull or weapons
allotment wrong.  But these are correct designs and will work for this
discussion.

BB Steve
mass: 154, cost: (4-row) 683, (3-row) 737
hull: 54, armor:  6, FTL, MD 2 (advanced)
Superior sensor, 4 FC, 1 ADFC
14 6-arc pulsers

BB Isucc
mass 144, cost: (4-row) 591, (3-row) 634
hull: 43, armor 8, FTL, MD 4 (advanced)
Superior sensor, 4 FC, 8 scatterguns
2 class-6 rail guns, 4 class-1 rail guns

Ship Steve's cost increase for 3-rows is 7.9%.	Ship Isucc's (can you
tell who won the battle between them?)	cost increasse is 7.3%.
Ship Steve's 1st-row hull increase went from 14 to 18, this is a
28.6% increase in critical damage prevention.  Ship Isucc's 1st-row
hull increase went from 11 to 15, this is a 36.4% increase in
critical damage prevention.

So, if we increase the 3-row hull cost from 3 to 4, Steve's cost
increase is 15.8%, while Isucc's cost increase is 14.6%; both are
still below the increase in damage prevention.

And that 4th row means little as a ship that is damaged that
badly is, effectively, mission killed.

So, Oerjan, tell me some more numbers.	:)

Glen